A House Upon a Rock
by peachandbetty
Summary: He may not find what he was looking for, but as a place to go, Relena was the best offer he'd had in years.
1. Chapter 1

This is my first multi-part for Gundam Wing. I've been planning it and writing it for ages but, because I'm a flake when it comes to long-term commitments, I haven't posted until now when Calenheniel gave me the green light confidence to do so. So, please enjoy reading it as I really enjoyed writing it. I'm already ahead by a few chapters so I'll try to be prompt with instalments.

A House Upon a Rock

Part 1 – Location Location

Were it not for the hail of bullets and the smog of exploding mobile suits, Heero suspected he might have enjoyed Earth a lot more than he had during the war. The air in this particular mountain village was crisp and clean, almost entirely devoid of the presence of man or machinery and it was oddly therapeutic. Comparatively the air in the colonies was stale and everything seemed cramped and soulless. He would regret his past inability to enjoy the Earth for what it was but this unexpected and appreciated outcome of his post-war travels seemed to make up for it.

He drained the last of his tea and placed it back on the small bamboo tea tray that had been left for him by the keeper of the small inn. Japan had proven to be fruitless in terms of finding what he needed but he had, at least, gotten an indirect sense of closure through the exploration of his roots. He would never be someone's grandson, or nephew; he knew that now. Everything that Aiden Lowe was expired when he'd been given a new name and in hindsight, it was rather foolish to pursue that train of thought as a method for coping with peacetime life.

But what he had found were small things, new things, that would be forever built into his design. He liked tea, he discovered. It was refreshing and lacked the strong tastes he tended to avoid in his palette. Japanese cuisine as a whole fit that bill, using fresh ingredients and simple tastes, though the mystery of the existence of umeboshi still eluded him. He discovered how to meditate, something Wufei had sworn upon but he had previously scoffed at as a pointless use of the placebo. It had lead Heero to wonder just how much rage the other pilot had been bottling up _before_ he'd taken to it, but Heero had no doubts of the effects it had on himself. The clarity of mind that came from it was eerily similar to the place he'd set aside for himself in the battlefield, a place where higher things governed over emotion and sentiment but with none of the adrenaline and red hot blood.

But, for all the novelty of new experiences in his life, he felt entire galaxies away from what he had expected to be at the age of twenty one. He knew peace time would be difficult. He'd fought for it not expecting to live to see it and now he was stuck between one plane of existence and another. He wasn't a soldier, not anymore. He no longer looked over his shoulder, or slept in a sort of shallow doze or kept his hand hovering over where his gun would be. But he sat and watched people milling around him, going about their lives and he felt so very far apart from them, and completely unsure and unable to force himself into that mould. Nothing felt right, and for all the progress he'd made in his mental wellbeing, he couldn't forget that the first sixteen years of his life were nothing short of extraordinary.

None of the other pilots were people you could particularly call well-adjusted. Even with the more sociable among them, Duo had a lifetime of death and trauma that would follow him around forever and it had resulted in the slow demise of his first adult relationship. Quatre was lucky to have found Trowa under such incredible circumstances; romance wasn't a common by-product of war, especially between soldiers, but he knew that everything they did to maintain that relationship was built on hardship and endless obstacles. But for all they'd been through, he didn't doubt that after one's death at the hand of the other, they would tough it out regardless of what life threw at them.

The rustle of a paper bag being plopped down in front of his disrupted his train of thoughts.

Trowa took a seat opposite him on the old wooden bench and began digging through it for a portion of steamed dumplings and Heero gratefully took his share. He hadn't expected to find Trowa in Japan of all places but as soon as she'd caught wind that the circus was in town he'd sent the other pilot a message on an email address only the four of them knew to use. He wasn't sure why he felt the need, but his friend's presence alone seemed to make all the difference to his restlessness. Trowa had a calming presence about him that seemed to induce logic where needed.

"It's not often we get messages from you," the taller man stated, taking a small bite from a sticky morsel, "Duo will be jealous."

Heero ignored the jibe and took a bite of his own. It was true he wasn't the best at keeping contact but in his defence, Duo wrote enough for the lot of them and, as was the case now, he wasn't sure what to say.

"How are things progressing with the files you found?" Trowa filled in the silence for him, and Heero inwardly thanked him. Trowa wasn't the most vocal of people himself but whatever he did say was often well times and on the mark.

"Dead ends," he supplied, taking a sip of fresh new tea and warming his hands on the ceramic, "this village was the last of them. Nobody here remembers my mother or knows about her clan. From what I gather, marrying a foreigner is nigh on a criminal offence here anyway. She would have been forgotten on principle."

Trowa nodded and took a sip of his own drink before his face twisted into a slight grimace. Heero had warned him; coffee here was not as he knew it. "Earth have some strange customs left over from history," he said, covering his coffee back up and setting it aside, "East Asia more than most. Wufei told me once that half of the traditions he had been raised on were never actually explained to him. I don't think people themselves know why they do what they do."

Heero nodded his agreement. Earth was a world apart from the colonies in terms of social progression but it was making valiant efforts in catching up with the new government at its helm. It was more noticeable in the more populated areas of the globe, with multiculturalism becoming almost a thing of fashion, but Heero didn't doubt it would be a very long time before they caught up to the colonies' one size fits all approach to society.

"I don't know where else to go," he confessed. The day he had found that file locked away on a secret server that had belonged to the late Dr. J, he was filled with a renewed sense of purpose. It was possible at that point that somebody out there belonged to him, and that was more than he could have expected out of his miserable existence. It was only now he was realising just how true that was.

Trowa, to his credit, didn't give him the look of pity he would have expected from Quatre or Duo, nor the hard-lined tough love he would have gotten from Wufei, and seemed to take his words for what they were without him needing to explain them. It wasn't a matter of _where_ exactly. It was a matter of what. Heero was supposed to be enjoying the peace they, together, had levelled the foundations for and he had no idea how to do it.

Trowa popped the last dumpling in his mouth and reached for his coffee before remembering that he had cast it aside for a reason, and fixing Heero with a small, genuine smile. "Quatre told me that in order to find peace, you to have to go where peace is. It's different for everybody. For me it was with him. For Wufei it was with the Preventers."

Go where peace is.

Heero wasn't one for the abstract. He had been taught to take things quite literally; things tended to go wrong if orders were taken any other way. He let the words wash over his mind and he wasn't entirely surprised when blue eyes and long, golden hair flashed across his memory. She was, after all, as literal a definition of peace as it got. But what did surprise him was how much it made sense to him, when she had so often made no sense at all.

"You look like you've hit the mark," Trowa prompted, packing away their discarded wrappings into the paper bag before standing with his jacket in hand, "though I don't think you expected to. I have to go. Wherever you end up, let me know."

Trowa held out his hand and Heero pulled himself out of his own head before clasping it firmly in gratitude. He didn't need to say his thanks; somehow he knew that the taller man didn't expect it and would reject it if offered.

As he watched the Heavyarms pilot disappear down the long stone steps back down the mountain, there was no more company to be had than his head and his newfound sense of direction.

Relena was a unique presence in his life, carrying the legacy of his one-time mission into its ultimate purpose. While they had never quite defined it, he would comfortably call her a friend, albeit in the oddest circumstances. They hadn't seen each other in nearly five years. She had grown up in front of the entire world's eyes, broadcast on every page and channel under a bright spotlight, and he found himself checking often the small signs, digging where he technically shouldn't, just to make sure she was okay.

But he had been as neglectful as a friend to her as he had been to the other pilots. He didn't communicate much about himself nor did he do so often. But unlike the other pilots, she had no way of telling if he was even still alive and Heero thought then how odd it was that she had never made the efforts to find out for herself. It was a thought that left him feeling an odd sense of sudden trepidation. Would she even want to see him again?

Heero took a deep breath and looked up at the clear sky, watching the odd wisp of white cloud float by. It wasn't too far from here that he had first crash landed into her life and he found it strange that this was the first time he'd thought of the fact since arriving in Japan. It was one of the most defining moments in his life and he'd pushed it aside, like any other memory as mundane as brushing his teeth.

And in that moment it was decided. He may not find what he was looking for, but as a place to go, Relena was the best offer he'd had in years.


	2. Chapter 2

I'm on schedule! That's…new to me. I'm not sure I like it.

Thank you those who reviewed last time. My inbox becomes so awesome when you do that.

A House Upon a Rock

Part 2 – Impose on the Neighbours

Relena didn't ask for much, but one thing she absolutely insisted upon was half an hour during the working day to herself. She loved her work. Her work in many ways defined her. But she found that as her youthful innocence began to leave her, so did her never-ending patience for biased old men and lobbyists with hidden agendas. This half hour of the day was a vital component of staying on top of her form and it was precious to her.

The short walk from the ESUN embassy to the small, charming tea shop in one of Brussels' many narrow alleyways was in itself an instant refresher, the slight chill in the air taking the edge off of her where she had been so busy and bustling not minutes prior. It felt good to walk, stretching her legs after far too long sat among the ranks of the unified government. She loved her job…but sometimes she felt she should campaign for regular tea breaks as a human right.

The tea shop was instantly inviting, a rush of warm air hitting her skin as soon as she opened the wood-paned door and a little bell announced her presence. "Ah, Little Miss. You'll be glad you came here today," the portly shop keeper announced in his deep baritone. He wasn't the sort of man one would expect to run a tea shop, others in the area often being championed by overly attractive women who fancied themselves ladies of society, but he was the best at his trade. There wasn't a leaf in the world the greying man didn't know how to grow, brew and serve and every cup came with the most expertly crafted cake for companionship.

"Good afternoon, Big John. You've been hinting at this secret shipment for the last week. Is today the day you finally deliver?" She teased, eager to try this new leaf he'd been bragging about for her last few visits. Big John was a king of his craft and loved tea as a whole but it took something very special to get him so worked up. He held up a chubby finger and crooked it, beckoning her closer and she couldn't help the smile on her face as she obliged.

"The first cup is yours, Little Miss," he murmured to her, as though a great secret, "The first dose of magical perfection for the finest palette in Brussels."

She gave a slight chuckle as she planted a small peck on his stubbled cheek in thanks and walked to her usual seat by the window, a small table for two that seemed to always be awaiting her custom. She unbuttoned her coat and shrugged it off of her shoulders, not caring when the ends fell onto the old rug below. She resisted the urge to pull out her data pad as she waited for her tea to brew, a rule she imposed on herself during time meant to be hers, and within a couple of minutes, a small glass teapot and ceramic cup and saucer were placed in front of her.

"Thank you," she smiled, as Big John gave her an exaggerated bow and moved back into his little kitchen. The tea was an interesting one, whole leaves swirling around the steaming glass pot and leaving a reddish orange trail in their wake. A type of redbush, perhaps?

She leaned forward, peering into the side of the teapot and watching the swirling colour darken as condensation caressed the sides. It was almost hypnotic and it wasn't until a masculine voice, smoother and more subdued than Big John's, broke through her rapt concentration that she realised someone else had seated himself at the other end of her table.

"It's still tea, no matter how hard you stare at it."

She straightened up so fast she nearly knocked the precious beverage clear off the table, scrambling to catch the teacup that had rolled onto its side and placing it back on the saucer. Heero Yuy was good at sneaking around, he'd had to be, and at one point in her life she'd learned to feel his certain presence at her shoulder. But at that moment, either he had gotten better or, more likely, he'd been out of her life for so long she'd lost her touch.

"Heero?" She sputtered, grabbing a napkin to mop up the slight spill from the pot, "What's happened?"

She assumed that if Heero was here, now and without warning that something must be going on. He was always keeping a diligent eye on things, and had promised her in a roundabout way before leaving her care that he'd be around if needed. But by the way his mouth turned to a displeased frown she realised that she might have gotten that wrong. She shot him an apologetic look; he didn't need an excuse to see her.

 _But after five years, what else should I expect?_

She didn't have expectations of him. The boy that had left her home at the end of the second Eve war, bandaged but broken in ways she couldn't heal, was still trying to find out what he expected of himself, let alone what others should expect of him. She wanted him to be happy and saw him disappear down the length of her driveway with all the hopes for him that he refused to have for himself. But, she selfishly admitted, she couldn't stop herself from thinking after him and those moments were more than a little bit lonely, as though the extraordinary boy that had changed her life had never existed at all, like dream in her head. In those times she felt she would have lit up like the sun if he'd so much as sent her an email. It was unfair of her, so she pushed those thoughts back where they belonged and her face bloomed into a smile she couldn't stifle.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, Heero?" She poured a cup of the brewed red leaf and sat back against her chair, peering up at him over her teacup. It was only then that she really saw him. While five years seemed to have had no effect on her other than to make her feel ever so slightly haggard and miraculously give her chest size a little bit of a boost, the boy in front of her was very much a man. Much about him was the same, his messy dark hair and eyes as deep as space itself, but he was tall even when seated with the curves and ridges of sinuous muscle forming gracefully against his slender frame. She had considered catching up with him in her office but with the women she worked with, it would be like letting a goat loose in the lions' den.

Heero regarded her teacup for a second before flicking his eyes over the collection of green teas lining the display behind her. She didn't know he had a thing for tea. Big John didn't even need to be asked, and within a minute he was bringing another steaming pot to the table. Heero looked at her with slight surprise at the gesture, but he nodded gratefully at the older gentleman and poured a cup of his own. "Do you come here often?" He asked.

"Only every day," she responded, the tang of rooibos cleansing her tongue, "Big John is my soul mate. And yours by the looks of it."

Heero started as he looked into his cup and realise he'd almost instantly drained half the cup. Oh yes, he definitely liked tea and Relena felt a little bubble of happiness knowing she and Heero had something outside of a warzone they could bond over. "I'm sorry. For not calling."

She waved off his comment, though the words brought back the slight sting of his transgression. "Or write. Or text. Or point a gun at my head. I'll be jealous if another woman has had that pleasure."

She wished she could take the words back as soon as they were out of her mouth; Heero wasn't a person she would historically recall getting the joke. So when the corner of his lips turned into something just shy of a smile, something that held an almost playful quality to it, she couldn't have been more unprepared. And five years suddenly seemed so much longer.

"Don't worry," he mocked, "there's a shortage of women as willing as you to get yourself killed." His face turned into a frown. "You've been reckless again. I read the report about your conference last month. Wear the Kevlar."

"When they make it in a presentable style, I may consider it." She rebuked stubbornly. As soon as this new, older, _smirkier_ Heero had come he'd gone again, and there was something about old Heero as she knew him that brought out the stubborn streak in her. In truth, she knew she should wear the Kevlar, but she'd gotten complacent after so long with incident and forgotten that there were people out there who wouldn't think twice about emptying a magazine into her chest.

Heero stared at her challengingly before realising that arguing would be an uphill battle, sinking back into his own chair and draining the rest of his cup in one. "Do what you want," he sighed, finger tapping against the side of his cup as though thinking of how to say his next words. Relena couldn't remember a time the man in front of her was anything less than forthright. "I'm thinking of moving here."

For all the consideration he'd taken with his words they were short and to the point and she wondered briefly what else he wasn't telling her. Still, though, they came with an impact. Of all the reasons she could have conjured for Heero Yuy to suddenly show up in her life, she would never have once guessed that it was because he was considering _moving_. Right near her, nonetheless. She really shouldn't have been as happy as she was, but a wide smile crept onto her face regardless and it visibly took him aback.

"Are you joining the Preventers?" she asked. He'd once told her that he would consider a post on her security staff, but later decided that in order to live a new life he would have to stay away from action altogether. She wondered if he'd changed his stance on that. She couldn't think of any other reason he could possibly want to stay in Brussels.

"No," he answered, leaning in and resting his arms on the table, "but if you keep refusing the vest I may end up stalking you anyway." He glared at her, but it lacked the potency she was used to from him, with an underlying warmth. She smiled.

"Is that a promise? How do I know you won't go running off again and the next time I see you will be wrinkled and grey?"

"Because I want to be here." He said, without skipping a beat, and the smile disappeared from her face at the utter sincerity expressed on his own. People always said the eyes were the window to the soul, and if the same was true for Heero then she had sudden reason to feel very special. "Because I think you can help me."

"Help you what?" she asked, brows furrowing in confusion. All this was awfully person for such a private man.

"I don't know yet." He admitted, eyes imploring her to understand what was ultimately unfathomable to both of them.

Relena blinked and held his gaze. The remaining tea in the pot had lot heat and she felt a little guilty for ruining Big John's special batch but nothing else in that moment seemed to matter more than the man asking for her help. He had never asked for help. More to the fact, he had made a point throughout their short history of helping her, even when it wasn't asked for. Somehow…it felt heart-warming to be asked, even when she didn't know what she was signing up for.

"Yes," she answered, with an exuberance that only the feeling in her heart could justify, "you shouldn't even have to ask."

Heero looked taken aback by the force of her answer but it was soon replaced by a small, soft smile. Relena felt her face heat slightly at the sight. She had only seen him smile once or twice, but both times were tinged with a sadness that robbed it of something she couldn't define. But here and now, on this man with such genuine gratitude and affection she wasn't at all expecting, it did everything to highlight just how very attractive he was.

She closed her mouth, suddenly aware that she was gaping and folded a hand over his. "So…you'll need a place to stay."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

One of the benefits that came with being a guest in Relena Darlian's household was having the luxury of complete privacy. Unlike her mother, ever raising the flag for high society, Relena preferred for herself a simpler life, and where others of a similar position may opt for a small army of a household staff, the lady of this household flicked her wrist expertly around a small plastic bowl, the contents of which would soon become their dinner.

And so it was just them and to his surprise it wasn't in the least bit awkward, as though five years hadn't happened at all. This was a different home to the one he'd spent months cooped up in as his bones melded and his muscle knit themselves back together, the Darlian estate being a good five times the size of Relena's townhouse, but the feeling was the same.

 _Warm._

"I haven't made tamagoyaki in a few years. I hope I've used the right amount of sugar." She poured a small amount into the pan and let it spread out to the edges, before expertly taking the quickly set mixture and folding it.

Heero watched in mild fascination as she poured the second layer into the pan and kept at her task. He hadn't asked her to cook for him but he was glad she had. Her mother she wasn't, but a good hostess she was in spades. He himself was a terrible cook, having learned from an early age that anything that came in a can was a meal and anything else was simply excessive. Seeing somebody else do something so expertly he himself couldn't comprehend was, he imagined, what other people must feel like watching pro athletes at the top of their game.

But that wasn't the only reason he watched.

"You have some on your blouse." He pointed at the slight yellow splotch on her top and fought a smile as she quickly abandoned her pan in favour of a dishcloth.

She pulled the fabric taut, trying to rub the stain and he should have felt some measure of guilt for simply sitting and watching. This entire setting was a disjointed normality that he had only ever previously felt an outsider to, but somehow at the moment it was as real as any other moment in his life. It was pleasant in a fragile way, as though he could blink and it would disappear but Quatre was right; peace where peace is.

She sat down in the chair in front of him and put the plate of folded egg in between them. He learned in his short stay with her after the wars ended that she deserved to be so small. She barely ate, by his standards, and when she did it was in increments he could hardly qualify as a bite. Nothing, apparently, had changed as she cut the corner off of one chunk and nibbled on it from the end of her fork. Heero had no such hang-ups, and took a whole chunk at once, savouring the salty sweet taste.

Another think he had learned about Relena in those months; she may not each much, but that she made was beyond comparison.

"If you were anybody else, I'd say you've missed your calling."

She blushed, and he felt inwardly pleased. Without the shadow and setting of war ever in their periphery, Heero had been forced into a situation in which he could learn the person that was Relena Darlian in a new and unbiased context. What he found was someone shy, despite her outrageous courage, and someone who was modest to a fault and couldn't see her own worth and virtue. What he also found was that she was easy to predict, and in the boredom of confinement he soon made a one-sided game of pressing her buttons to get a desired response. The blush came more often than one would expect for someone so unapologetically bold.

"It's funny you should mention that. I wanted to be a pastry chef as a girl," she smiled, nibbling on another morsel of omelette, "Mother disagreed with my career choice of course. And the rest is history."

Heero eyed the last chunk on the plate, but left it alone. He wasn't sure how much she'd had but he wouldn't let her starve on account of his endless appetite. "Would you believe I never wanted to be a pilot?"

Heero didn't particularly enjoy talking about his childhood. It was full of memories he'd rather let fade if he had the option. But at that moment, with the atmosphere and airs of domesticity, it was as though every shadowed thought in his mind belonged to someone else. He could trust her, he knew, with almost anything and just for once he wanted to be able to believe in trust.

He let go of the fork he hadn't realised he'd been gripping so hard and coaxed himself to relax, meditative technique at work. He didn't know how he'd have survived the last few years without it.

She was staring at him, obviously concerned and more than his concern for his privacy, he felt the need to abate her worry. She worried for far too many.

"I wanted to be an engineer." He divulged, a small bubble of something warm rose in his chest as he told what he'd never really needed, wanted or had to tell anyone. Before it was just him and an errant desire. Shared, it became something real and it was liberating to know that something about himself, when even his name wasn't his own, was _his._

"I think that suits you," she said, sipping from her iced tea, "When you were bed bound here, you seemed quite content tinkering away at that gizmo of yours. Personally, I couldn't tell the difference between a fuse and a plugspark."

"Sparkplug," he corrected, taking a mouthful of his own beverage, "and if the world knew the extent of your mechanical ineptitude, they may question their leadership."

"A good leader recognises her failings. I kill every machine I touch; I've made the conscious decision to never drive."

"You need to learn to drive; stop putting it off. It's easier than you seem to think it is." He knew that meant little coming from him, but he honestly couldn't imagine not being able to drive. It was like someone saying they never learned to walk or see. Being the almost extremely liberal person she was, she must be sick of being driven around like cargo.

"Fine. I'll learn to drive if you tell me what's really bought you back here. It can't just be for my omelette." Her face dropped all form of light-heartedness in an instant, and the atmosphere notably changed. It was her talent of observation that indicated the immense intelligence he knew lurked beneath her unintimidating exterior, and she'd pinned him down dead centre. He was distracting himself from his goal, a goal he didn't know he wanted to achieve because he didn't know how to achieve it. It was not a comfortable feeling.

And there was no very dignified way of asking.

"I don't know what I want."

She seemed to get his meaning, though. He wasn't simply stating that he didn't know what he desired; he was stating that he didn't know what those desires _were._ Just that he had them, and she nodded, comprehension reflecting in her ever confident eyes. "Well, what about what you want to be?"

Once upon a time, he would have scoffed at the question, in the quite spiteful manner his teenage self had taken as habit. He was what he was and he had no choice in that. But, this was the first time in his life he realised that the choice was _only_ his.

"Happy." That warmth from earlier when he spoke of his childhood wants, of sitting in the kitchen with a friend eating omelette and drinking tea and talking about nonsensical things that have no impact on anything or anyone but themselves. He had a feeling happiness would be akin to that, if only in the abstract sense. "I want to be happy."

He stared into his empty glass as the words came out, and for all the glaring openness of them they left him feeling notably absent of shame. He wanted to be happy and for once he felt that was okay. It wasn't until he felt something soft, wet and cool press against his forehead that he broke from his thoughts, Relena's iced-tea chilled lips retreating from their brief touch to his skin.

It wasn't romantic, he knew. She was a creature of indefinite spontaneity that expressed herself in any way she saw fit. She kissed him, not for the first time, simply because she felt she needed to. On the desolate ruins of an abandoned colony, the burn and fire of recent combat fresh in his veins he'd done the same to her. Even then, he hadn't questioned it and neither had she. It just was.

She leaned across the table still, holding his gaze with eyes that implored him with a natural and potent sincerity.

"Don't make me repeat myself;" she intoned softly, "I don't believe there's anything you can't do."

She pulled away from him and sat back in her chair, the bastardisation of their talk on Libra those years ago echoing in his memory. For however easy it had been to bring forth the blood to her face earlier, there was no more decoration to her now than a simple smile that embodied everything that drew her to this woman, the girl that had inexplicably stopped him along every reckless track he'd set down even at the end of his own gun.

"Have you ever heard the saying, _a wise man builds his house upon the rock?"_

He shook his head, somewhat silenced by her actions and intent on listening. Relena wasn't just a good leader because she was born from good stock; she had a wisdom he could only hope to attain, even if their values differed in bends and curves.

"The man who built his house upon the sand had it tumble at his feet, sand of course being a silly place to build anything."

She sounded much like a school teacher, but he nodded slowly, not certain at all where she was going with this. He knew there would be a point, there always was, but sometimes it baffled him the routes she took to get there.

"The man who built his house upon the rock, firm and steady, lived in it for a hundred years, happy and content. So, Heero, where's your rock?"

He couldn't help it. The rational part of him strained to get around her analogy and instead, cut itself the easiest route. Taking Trowa's advice literally had worked for him, and had bought him here. There was no reason it shouldn't work for him again.

Somewhere firm and steady, where the world didn't shift around him when he spoke of his unstable past and a few words and an innocent press of chilly lips brought him back to centre; he had already found his rock.

Now he just needed to build a house.


	4. Chapter 4

Heero stepped out of the shower and let the November chill hit him. There was something oddly pleasant about taking a very hot shower, as though it renewed every nerve and fibre, and it was one of the few luxuries he indulged in as often as he could. He walked up to the mounted mirror and brushed a palm over his cheek, testing whether he'd need to have another shave but instead found himself looking at his torso.

Living for the last three months with Relena had been comfortable, a little too comfortable given the fact he could pinch a little of the flesh on his tummy. Her home-cooked meals were nothing short of expertly design and executed, and with his overly large appetite he noted he may have to consider upping his exercise regime in compensation.

He'd been keeping himself useful. Being unable to drive, Relena was generally reliant on others in that regard and when he'd first seen the pile of reports on her desk that needed clearing he felt the instant need to purge them on her behalf. He'd even managed to weed out some of the exaggerations, mis-informations and even outright lies that she'd been seemingly fed on a daily basis, from those who would seek to use her relative inexperience against her. He may not be active in the field anymore but he kept his threads tied to enough sources to keep himself fresh. She was a busy woman, and he was glad he was able to take some of that pressure off of her in exchange for her kindness.

Relena wasn't the type to pressure him, and he was grateful for that. But he'd come here for a reason and he was, through distraction and procrastination, avoiding his obligations under his given duty to himself.

His mind wandered back to the mission at hand every now and then and he was sometimes forced into the debate. He, at least, knew he wanted to stay put in Brussels. It was a start. When he'd told Relena she'd tried unsuccessfully to mask how pleased she was and in a way it was an ego boost for him to know that he had this place where he was always wanted. It didn't make sense to want to be anywhere else.

But when it came to the execution of that plan, he had no strategy and no way forward and simply thinking about what it involved and how to get there was exhausting. Still, as comfortable as he was, there was that scratching sensation at the back of his mind when he knew he had something to do and it was incomplete and it would eventually bother him into action.

If he was going to do this, he would need Relena's guidance. He wasn't proud, far from it, and he was all but a virgin to the experience of living for the sake of living. He just wasn't well versed at asking others for help after a life time of being forced to figure things out on his own. And, in the last three months, it took a remarkably short time to pick up where they had left off those years ago, building on a friendship that had never truly faded but hadn't had the change to blossom in the way he now knew was possible. Growing up had changed them and, he suspected, allowed that progression to be made; he was thankful for that.

"Are you decent?" A cautious voice called from the bathroom door and Heero turned off the tap, snapping himself out of his thoughts and grabbing a towel to wrap around his waist.

"In a sense," he responded, and her head peered through the crack in the door, with a slightly pink tinge to her face. Well, he had warned her.

"Dinner's almost ready. Did you want broccoli cheese or buttered peas?"

Before Heero could request healthy helpings of both, the phantom feeling of his tummy between his fingers made him backtrack. "No thanks," he responded, hoping she wouldn't be offended but she smiled anyway.

"Peas without the butter?"

Heero wasn't sure whether she was psychic or she had also noticed his extra tissue, and he fought the petty urge to cover up his top half, but he nodded anyway and she slipped back through the crack in the door with a quick wave.

With her gone, Heero looked in the mirror again. Being on the receiving end of one of his own glares was an experience he didn't care to repeat, and he resolved in that moment to buy a house on a very large hill.

"I'll teach you to cook sometime," she reached down from behind him and picked up his plate, all but polished from his enthusiastic consumption of her meagre offering of macaroni and cheese. It was the end of the month, and she couldn't go to the market until the weekend , so needs must. Still, the lonely bit of chorizo she'd found at the back of the fridge had given it a little something, even if it was essentially the simplest dish in the known universe.

Heero got up, as he always did, to wash the dishes. It was a happy arrangement. She cooked, he cleaned. It made her a little sad for the day he would leave her townhouse sanctuary into one of his own and she'd be stuck with dry, dish soap hands again.

"You're welcome to try," Heero grumbled and she smiled. His first attempt at reciprocating her culinary gifts had resulted in a short bout of gastro-enteritis that had left her bed bound for a couple of days. The poor man had felt so guilty afterwards, he treated the kitchen like a plague ward. Still, it had been nice to take a break, albeit an uncomfortable one. It resolved her to take more time from work when she had the chance, instead of letting her own life get away from her.

Somehow Relena had a feeling his new, and first, abode would be particularly Spartan in the kitchen area. Plenty of can openers, though.

"Have you thought any more about what sort of place you'd like?" She asked casually, reaching into the fridge for a bottle of wine. She didn't like to pressure him; she wasn't entirely sure she wanted him to leave at all even if it was to another part of the same city. It was lonely, just being her, with no real friends around and her mother still flittering around the social elite in Japan. She hadn't minded that until he'd come back into her life and she was given a stark reminder of what she'd been missing. Still, Heero had come to her asking for help and help she would, even if that meant pulling him out of his own rut.

Heero took a glass from the rack and held it out to her, his lathered hands leaving wispy foam on the stem, and she obligingly filled it for him. Sharing a bottle of wine in the evenings had become something of a ritual. Neither would consider themselves alcoholic, per se, but it took the edge off and facilitated some of the most invigorating conversations she'd ever had. Who else would debate with her the virtues of a drone-worker system in the initial phases of the Mars Terraformation?

"Some," he said taking a gulp of his wine with a grimace and she knew then he'd needed it. She didn't know what difficulties he'd been having in working this out for himself, but she found there was nothing better for clarity than an intimate liaison with Mr Pinot Grigio. "I know I want to live out of the city proper."

"Too crowded?" she guessed, and he nodded his agreement.

"Crowded places have their uses; they're easy to hide in, convenient in terms of resources and there's always someone you can use to your advantage."

Relena frowned at his line of thinking. "That's a bitter way to view the world you live in."

"Exactly. If I'm going to do this, I need to get out of that mind-set." He moved the glass back to his lips before realising there was none to drink, and Relena took the cue to refill. Tonight, it seemed, would be a long one.

"And out of the city." She agreed. Personally, she liked the hustle and bustle, having lived the quiet life herself as a young girl but she supposed she could apply the same logic to Heero's reasoning. After a lifetime of gunfire and explosions, now was the time for quiet. "There're some very nice rural areas around. A lot of the farms are moving outwards to profit from the increased land value since Brussels became the new governmental capital. If you can afford it, there's plenty of old farm houses going."

Heero stared into his wine and considered it for a second before shaking his head. "I want to move out of the city, not out of civilisation."

Relena arched an eyebrow at him. "So you want to be out of the way but with all the modern conveniences you currently enjoy on a platter?" Good luck with that, she thought. Colonists enjoyed a higher level of technological advancement than that of Earth. They drove automatic cars, where earthlings tended to drive manual, they had electric doors while earth had good old fashioned brass handles…and that was in the cities. There were parts of the Brussels countryside with absolutely zero mobile signal or wireless internet.

"I didn't think it'd be too much to ask…" he groused, looking away from her as a sure sign he'd been embarrassed by his own naiveté on the matter and suddenly Relena felt a little guilty. She should be more supportive of his relatively little experience in the fine art of location hunting, and she shouldn't tease him.

Much.

"I think we need to gather some sources of inspiration." She put her glass down on the counter, and Heero moved to re fill it. The tablet he'd procured for her was a useful little thing, even if it was infuriatingly hard to use at first, and since then she found curling up and just browsing the world on a seven inch screen was just her kind of therapy.

Maybe that was what Heero needed; to view the world he intended to inhabit and see what inspires him to stay.

"Have you ever heard the phrase _home is where the heart is?_ " Heero sat down beside her and peered intrigued at her motions on the pad. She felt him move closer to her to get a better view and began to feel a little warm. "Maybe if you look at some examples, you'll get an understanding of what you want?" She finished, just as her page loaded.

 _La Vie Bruxelles_

Heero folded one large hand over hers and gently moved it to the side so he could see. She felt a little heat on her face; he was getting awfully familiar lately and she wasn't sure how she felt about her own reactions to it. It wasn't intimate, beyond their deepening friendship, or even suggestive. She acknowledged, with no small measure of self-depreciation, that she'd had something close to a crush on this man as a girl, him being in her mind the first thing to excite her in an otherwise unexcitable life. By the time the war had ended, that had dissipated into a deep respect and admiration that was much more spiritual than anything else.

Now, being nothing shy of really quite gorgeous, here she was going through it all over again, and she felt every bit the silly girl she had five years ago.

So she took a breath, and took herself to a place in herself she usually reserved for her work, and blocked out all distractions.

"I've been out to this area a couple of times," she explained, pointing to a map with several house-shaped pins sticking out of it, "it's rural but it has a smallish village in the centre with all your essentials. I've never had any issue getting any signal there, either."

Heero tapped one of the pins in interest and photos popped out at them of a reasonably sized cottage that looked as though it had been recently refurbished. "Not bad. It's a short drive from the ring road."

"So you like it?" She asked, enthused by his first indication of interest since they'd started this venture.

"Not really," she deflated, something he seemed to notice as he explained himself, "I'm not very appreciative of antiquity in general. Houses like that come with a lot of character but a lot of risk."

Relena, took a sip from her glass and nodded her understanding. That, she thought, was where they would differ. She was rather fond of antiquity but then a large portion of earthlings were, having a vast and varied history where colonists had just over two decades' worth. History in colonial schools was taught as in the same way physics was taught in Earth schools; it was too obscure for anyone to really take interest.

"Oh, that one looks nice," she pointed to a house built near a slip road by the village, "it's a recent build, too. Only 60 years."

Heero looked at her like he wanted to agree with her but when he looked back at the screen he shook his head again. "Five bedrooms is a bit excessive for a single male."

"I guess," she sighed, leaning back against her chair, sensing a pattern in their current efforts, "though you won't be single forever."

The words were out of her mouth before she'd really processed them in her own head. She had _work mode_ to thank for that. It was the logical thing to say, it made sense to, but in the context of the unwanted ghosts of old sentiments humming through her alcohol-tainted veins it immediately took her right back onto a topic she wasn't all that comfortable with.

She took a larger sip from her glass than she'd intended and peered up over the rim at him, hoping he mistook the redness on her face for intoxication.

"Probably not," he agreed, not seeming to notice anything out of place at all. He, at least, took it at face value, as something logical he should take into consideration and took that as a prompt to change his search details to 2-3 bedroom. But something in the fact that he could say that so easily disturbed her.

She spoke without really thinking, but her curiosity was roused. "How _is_ your dating life?"

It was a question she asked quite a few people she had run ins with. She'd asked Quatre once with the pure and honest intention of hoping he'd give her the good news he'd come to terms with his feelings for another of the Gundam pilots. She'd never met Trowa Barton, but for all the respect both Heero and Quatre seemed to have for him, she knew she would like him instantly. But this wasn't Quatre, or Dororthy or her unlucky-in-love PA or the lady that cleans her office after hours.

This was Heero and while the concept of the question shouldn't mean anything different, somehow, it really did.

Heero looked at her coolly, but something in his eyes told her he was gauging whether or not to enter this line of conversation. So, as seemed to be their mutual means of bypassing any natural inhibitions, he drained the last of his glass and reached for the bottle, before realising it was a few drops from empty.

"I wouldn't call it dating," he began, distracting himself with flicking through the listings near the village, "I was on the move a lot. And, I was still trying to grow up. With Duo as testament, being treated like an adult for the majority of your life doesn't make you one."

It was a sentiment she had been trying to put into words herself for a long time, and she smiled for the resonance Heero's experiences had with her own. It was something so few understood, being two of very few in their unique positions, and Relena herself hadn't felt ready to let someone into her life until she was twenty. Even then, she was too emotionally immature and too distracted to really foster anything close to a functional relationship.

"But, growing up had its own issues and there were times…needs must."

One thing endearing about Heero was that you'd never something as telling as a blush on his face. He hid the signs of his embarrassment behind a mane of chocolate hair as his ears turned crimson. Still, when you knew to look as Relena did, his meaning became clear.

"Poor girls," she joked, trying to ignore the images putting Heero in a sexual context conjured in her mind. She'd seen Heero in a towel more than a few times but it was decent enough not to really think anything of it. Suddenly it was all she could think of. "You've blazed a trail of broken hearts across the globe."

"You make it sound worse than it is…" he looked away from her back at the screen, clearly a little perturbed at having his own promiscuity on display, but she didn't judge him for it. As he'd said, needs must, and if she was honest with herself it wasn't a concept she was all that unfamiliar with. Not that he needed to know that.

"How about that one," she pointed out, changing the topic for the sake of his painfully red ears, "it's a moderate size, quite modern?"

"It's on low ground," he shook his head, "when the rains come that'll be a problem."

Relena wanted to disagree with him, but he was probably right. She couldn't recall ever being this picky about her town house. She just…liked it, as soon as the agent let her in the door and she just knew it was for her. But, she wasn't everyone and Heero, as it turned out, was picky. He had a right to be picky, and she suspected that it had a lot to do with the fact that he was making this decision in the first place.

 _Why do anything without the intention to do it right?_

His words from his first stay with her, during a long and painful recovery, echoed through her. He'd managed to get her laptop, which had met an unfortunate end at the hand of a cup of coffee and her own clumsiness, to the point where it was miraculously functional and even faster than it had been before. When she'd thanked him for it, he took it back off her and immediately started pulling it apart again. _Why?_ She'd asked him.

There was a pixel out in the corner. And that was just the sort of person Heero was. The same person that offered his life to each and every member of Marshall Noventa's family to properly atone for a mission gone horribly wrong. _Thorough._

If anybody was going to present Heero with a house, it would have to be as though he himself built it.

"Heero!" she gasped, before quickly snapping her mouth shut, embarrassed at being too carried away with her own revelation her volume control had temporarily lapsed. "Heero, what if you build your own?"

As expected, he was instantly intrigued, and she knew she'd hit the spot. He'd told her a couple of months ago that he wanted to be an engineer. He loved engineering, from gizmos to cars to pipework and beyond. Her library, where once it had been filled with trashy pulp fiction novels and a shameful amount of rather detailed romantic novels, was now bursting at the seams with manuals, research papers and blueprints.

If he needed the motivation to see this through, _this_ would be it.

"Build my own…" he said the words as though testing the idea through sound alone, and instantly he drifted into his own thoughts and she knew she'd won him over.

Heero Yuy was in planning mode, and from first and experience she knew there'd be no stopping him.

When he got up to fetch his laptop from the kitchen counter she smiled and walked back to the fridge.

"I'll get another bottle, shall I?"


End file.
